Bestselling author Matt Haig tells Theo Merz about 'coming out' with
depression and being intimidated by the reaction to his new book, Reasons to
Stay Alive

“Things that have happened to me that have generated more sympathy than depression,” begins one chapter ofMatt Haig’s new book, Reasons to Stay Alive. The list begins: “Having tinnitus, losing a job, breaking a toe, being in debt, bad Amazon reviews.”

Because while one in five of us will suffer from depression at some point in our lives, Haig suggests most people still have little idea how to act around those suffering from this most common form of mental illness.

And while people seem increasingly open to talk about their experiences of mental health issues online, from celebrity blog posts to Twitter accounts detailing the recovery process, it remains rare for public figures to write so candidly and in such depth about their own depression.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that it’s hard to find the words to describe a condition which appears to cut sufferers off from the rest of the world. When we do talk about it, we often turn to decades-old clichés to describe the experience: from Winston Churchill’s black dog to Sylvia Plath’s bell jar.

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So when someone like Haig writes a book like Reasons to Stay Alive – a short history of depression, combined with his experience of the condition – other sufferers are quick to latch onto it.

"Why are you crying? Because you need to put the washing on?"

“I always thought of it as hubris to hope I would ever write something that would change people’s lives,” says York-based Haig, who has written young adult titles and five novels for adults – his most recent being the 2013 bestsellerThe Humans.

“But inevitably with this topic, with people in life threatening states, people tend to cling to anything.

“Even just from advance copies that have gone out and what I’ve written about on my blog, I’ve had a lot of direct messages,” the 37-year-old says in the week before publication. “They are the kind of message you really need to get back to, because often it’s from people in serious situations, or people who know others in very serious situations.

“There’s a side of it that’s quite scary, quite intimidating.

"Also, people handle you differently once you've written about this. If you say online that you’re having a bad day, they will assume it means you’re on the edge of a cliff rather than behind on your emails.”

If strangers are so willing to open up to the author, though, it is only because he has shared so much with them. In the book, Haig details a nervous breakdown in his mid-20s and describes three years of depression which left him practically unable to leave the house.

There are imagined conversations with depression:

You are going to go mad. Like Van Gogh. You might cut off your ear. Why are you crying? Because you need to put the washing on?

as well as conversations between the writer then and the writer now:

THEN ME: I want to die.

NOW ME: Well, you aren’t going to.

THEN ME: That is terrible.

NOW ME: No. It is wonderful. Trust me.

Writing about the experience has played a key role in Haig’s recovery, or the depression’s remission – Haig says he will always be prone to the condition but now knows how best to deal with it.

A two-tier system

“It can be difficult for people to talk about it, because there still is that stigma around mental illness,” the father-of-two says. “But I would encourage people to do that, because they’ll be surprised once they do ‘come out’ how many other people have had similar experiences. I know people often stigmatise themselves; they think there’s something to hide.

“I think in some ways it’s harder for men, who are worried about fitting that macho, stoic stereotype. We often joke about men moaning about being ill, whether it’s man flu or anything else. We want them to be silent and strong about these things.

“And that’s quite dangerous when it comes to depression, because talking about it helps. People bottle it up until it’s too late.”

The stigma would disappear and treatment would improve, Haig believes, if we removed the “false dichotomy” between mental and physical illness.

“So many of the symptoms of anxiety and depression are physical: with depression it’s fatigue and aching limbs, with anxiety it’s a racing heart.

“I think in 100 years’ time, we’ll look back at the two-tier system of mental and physical health almost how we look back at the four humours now. Yes, stress can cause depression and anxiety, but it can also lead to the flu. Everything relates to the mind in some way.”

So what next, as a writer? Does he worry about becoming The Man Who Writes About Depression? “I’m working on different things, one of which is a screenplay of The Humans, and I’m itching to get started on my next adult novel.

“But I’m determined my next book after that will have nothing to do with depression. I may go back to it at some point, but I don’t know. I don’t want to be pigeonholed.”